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Registration Riots
The Registration Riots began in the middle of a debate between Lex Luthor and Super Soldier, proponents of the Enabling SuperPowered Accountability (ESPA) Act, and various heros opposed. The debate was televised live nationwide. During the debate, one opponent of the bill, Captain Glory, renounced his United States citizenship and fired heat vision at one of the cameras, but the heat vision was intercepted by Supergirl. The damage was done, however, and the debate was ended as security guards rushed in to evacuate the spectators from Metropolis University's event center, where the debate was being held. Metropolis Metropolis was the epicenter of the riots, though far from the most affected. The Siege of Glenmorgan Square In Glenmorgan Square, the debate was visible on approximately two thirds of the screens, and Captain Glory's actions incited a chorus of boos from the crowd. Several supers were at the scene, and members of the crowd began throwing garbage and assorted debris at the hovering heroes. There were calls for the arrest of the supers, and some of the crowd began trying to pull down the lower flying metahumans and herd them towards the police station. Within minutes, the police arrived in force and ordered the crowd to disperse. The public record is uncertain of what happened next, but the official JLA record, based on eyewitness testimony from several heroes present, states that someone in the crowd pulled a gun and fired on the police officers. The crowd took this to mean that the police were on the side of the metas, and charged the police lines. The police withdrew in chaos, unwilling to fire on citizens, while fire trucks and riot teams began to set up further down the streets from Glenmorgan Square. Eyewitness testimony records that a bird-like hero, identified by the JLA as Rakhemet, attempted to slow the advance of the crowd with magical barriers. At this point, Super Soldier arrived on the scene and attempted to calm the rioters. Unfortunately, he had the opposite effect. Super Soldier assured the rioters that they were within their rights and convinced a local gun store owner to open his doors and arm the crowd, before symbolically destroying a billboard of the Man of Steel personally, sparking an iconoclastic purge on the part of the citizens, who proceeded to deface any images of heroes not officially aligned with ESPA. Super Soldier vanished at some point during the iconoclastic purge, and a metahuman wearing a facsimile of Superman's costume arrived and fired heat vision into the crowd, killing several. The JLA maintains and public record confirms that the real Man of Steel was in fact in San Francisco at the time, defending the city from Braniac. The imposter withdrew under heavy fire from the crowd, though reportedly he appeared to be unharmed. Meanwhile, further down the street, Rakhemet had created a magical wall across the length of the street, attempting to buy the police and firefighters time to withdraw. When the Superman fake had gone, the crowd began to move on the magical wall, firing weapons. At this point, an unidentified hero arrived and tried to hold back the crowd, with little success. The hero appeared to possess all of Superman's abilites. Under heavy fire, the magical barrier finally collapsed, and Rakhemet recieved several gunshot wounds before withdrawing from the scene. In what appeared to be a fit of desperation, the hero used heat vision to gouge a trench around Glenmorgan Square and the immediate area, trapping the rioters inside. A National Guard detatchment under the command of Colonel Pike had arrived at this time and set up a perimiter around the Glenmorgan Square area, which they held against all but humanitarian aid and one news crew. Now cut off from the rest of Metropolis, the rioters in Glenmorgan Square declared themselves in a state of rebellion against the United States government until such time as the ESPA Act was passed. What became known as the Siege of Glenmorgan Square continued for the next two weeks. Finally, Supergirl decided to negotiate the surrender of the group now calling themselves the Glenmorgan Revolutionaries. With the assistance of fellow heroes Gorknal and KriegShock, the latter of whom was officially aligned with the ESPA bill and had been its spokesperson, Supergirl appeared to have the Revolutionaries on the brink of peacefull resolution. However, a fat man now believed to be a mind-controlling metahuman began to convince the people in the square to return to armed rebellion. The man was forcibly removed from the area by Gornknal and placed in the custody of Colonel Pike. The remaining Revolutionaries surrendered without incident. Unfortunately, the fat man was now controlling Colonel Pike, and ordered the National Guard surrounding the area to eliminate everyone within. A battle ensued during which the unknown hero who had isolated Glenmorgan Square on the first day of the riots reappeared and assisted Supergirl and KriegShock with the defense of the square. Miraculously, despite the fact that the Guardsmen were firing live ammunition, there were no casualties. KriegShock jammed the Guards' communications, and with their link to the fat man severed, they immediately stopped fighting, every soldier later reporting that they had felt like they had been drowning when they were under the fat man's control. The fat man, seeing that he had been defeated, ordered Colonel Pike and his command staff, who were unfortunatly still under the fat man's control, to kill themselves, which they proceeded to do. The heroes heard the shots and rushed to the command center too late to find anything other than nine bodies and a laughing fat man. The fat man was taken into military custody and reportedly died after falling down several flights of stairs later. Supergirl issued a statement to the effect that the next time something like Glenmorgan happened, she would not hesitate to take action sooner, before leaving the scene. Centennial Park In the wake of the debate fiasco, riots sprang up across Metropolis. One centered on the statue of Superman in Centennial Park. Rioters attempted to tear down the statue, only to be stopped by a superhero. Several other super-powered individuals arrived and engaged in an argument which only ended when a sonic blast toppled the already-bent statue. None of the supers present claimed responsibility for the attack, the source of which remains a mystery. The statue was not replaced until after the Siege of Glenmorgan had ended. Gotham Gotham, a volitile city at the best of times, turned into a warzone in the wake of the registration debate. Shootings were rampant and a semblance of order was not restored for several days.